Brian Daboll is walking into Tennessee with the one thing every young quarterback needs: real authority.
At Titans training camp, Robert Saleh made it clear that Cam Ward’s growth sits in Daboll’s hands. The new head coach didn’t dress it up or leave room for much guessing. He said the offensive coordinator is the expert in that room and that Tennessee hired him for a reason.
“ At the end of the day, Daboll is an expert on offense with good knowledge of defense, just like I'm an expert on defense with good knowledge of offense,” Saleh said at a recent training camp practice. “ So we'll have constant dialogue, we'll have thoughts, he'll spitball ideas to me and I'll go back and forth with him. At the end of the day, you hire these guys because you trust that they're the best in the world at what they're doing...
There's a lot of dialogue that's happening, but as far as being a micromanager, I don't think that's what you're looking for. I don't think micromanaging is the right thing to do.
We hired Dabes for a reason... I'm going to give him my trust.”
That’s the heart of the setup in Tennessee. Saleh says he’ll stay involved, ask questions and push back when needed, but he’s not interested in hovering over the offense. He sees his role as more of a big-picture leader, someone who can oversee the operation while letting the people hired for specific jobs actually do them.
That matters because the Titans didn’t bring Daboll in just to fill a chair. They brought him in because he was the coach who wanted Ward in the 2025 NFL Draft, and now he gets the chance to build around him.
For Tennessee, that kind of alignment is the point. Saleh’s willingness to hand over the offense - and to admit that he’s not trying to micromanage it - gives Ward a clear lane and Daboll the control to shape it. Josh Allen and Jaxson Dart have already shown how that kind of setup can work.
It also says something about Saleh himself. He knows what he knows, he knows what he doesn’t, and he’s comfortable empowering the people around him. In a sport where coaches often want to control every inch of the operation, that’s a pretty sharp way to start.
In Other News...
Titans Have A Taysom Hill Debate Fans Will Want To See
Taysom Hills announcement that he will not return to the Saints has pushed his NFL future into the open, and it is the kind of situation that naturally invites a few different teams into the conversation. For the Titans, the appeal is obvious on paper. Hill has spent years living in the leagues in-between spaces, handling snaps as a quarterback, lining up at tight end, working as a running back and helping on special teams. Few available players can offer that kind of flexibility, especially for a team always looking for ways to stretch a roster.
The question for Tennessee is less about whether Hill can still fill a useful role and more about how much a coaching staff would be willing to build around that kind of moving piece. The Titans could use another player who changes the math on offense and contributes in the kicking game, and Hills profile fits that description better than most. Whether that interest turns into anything is still unclear, but it is the sort of roster debate that makes sense to have before the market sorts itself out. [Read more 🡒]
Titans Secondary Is Starting To Look Exactly Like Robert Saleh Wants
The Titans secondary is beginning to take on the shape Robert Saleh prefers, and the latest additions only sharpen that identity. CorDale Flott and Alontae Taylor bring the kind of length and physical style that fit a defensive coach who wants corners to make life difficult right at the line of scrimmage, while Tennessees front four continues to give the back end a sturdy foundation to work from.
There has already been a noticeable feel to practice as the defense leans into that approach, with the coverage group looking built to hold up in the kind of aggressive scheme Saleh has long favored. Flott and Taylor give the Titans more pieces that match the blueprint, and the next question is how quickly the whole unit can turn that look into something opponents have to spend real time preparing for. [Read more 🡒]